Oil spills threaten undiscovered Prehistoric deep sea life

[Umbrage]

SYDNEY - Australian scientists have discovered bizarre prehistoric sea life hundreds of kilometres below the Great Barrier Reef, in an unprecedented mission to document species under threat from ocean warming.

Ancient sharks, giant oil fish, swarms of crustaceans and a primitive shell-dwelling squid species called the Nautilus were among the astonishing life captured by remote controlled cameras at Osprey Reef. Lead researcher Justin Marshall Thursday said his team had also found several unidentified fish species, including "prehistoric six-gilled sharks" using special low-light sensitive cameras which were custom designed to trawl the ocean floor, 1,400 metres (4,593 feet) below sea level.

"Some of the creatures that we've seen we were sort of expecting, some of them we weren't expecting, and some of them we haven't identified yet," said Marshall, from the University of Queensland. "There was a shark that I really wasn't expecting, which was a false cat shark, which has a really odd dorsal fin."

The team used a tuna head on a stick to attract the creatures, which live beyond the reach of sunlight.

Marshall said the research had been made more urgent by recent oil spills affecting the world heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef, and the growing threat to its biodiversity by the warming and acidification of the world's oceans.

"One of the things that we're trying to do by looking at the life in the deep sea is discover what's there in the first place, before we wipe it out," Marshall told AFP. "We simply do not know what life is down there, and our cameras can now record the behaviour and life in Australia's largest biosphere, the deep sea," he added.

Scientists have already warned that the 345,000-square kilometre (133,000-square mile) attraction is in serious jeopardy, as global warming and chemical runoff threaten to kill marine species and cause disease outbreaks. Chinese coal ship Shen Neng 1 gouged a three-metre scar in the reef when it ran aground whilst attempting to take a short cut on April 3, leaking tonnes of oil into a famed nature sanctuary and breeding site. About 200,000 litres of heavy fuel oil spewed into waters south of the reef last March when shipping containers full of fertilizer tumbled off the Hong Kong-flagged Pacific Adventurer during a cyclone, piercing its hull. It was one of Australia's worst ever oil spills.

Marshall said the cameras would now be sent to the sludge-ridden Gulf of Mexico to monitor the effects of the oil spill there on marine life.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Prehistoric+life+discovered+Great+Barrier+Reef+depths/3282021/story.html

Deep-sea anglerfish


Peraphilla deep-sea jellyfish

More pics:
http://www.watoday.com.au/photogallery/environment/creatures-of-the-deep/20100714-10bad.html

More news: (but for some reason doesn't mention the part about pollution and the oil spills, as did several other news sites)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1294967/Pictured-The-incredible-deep-sea-fish-discovered-Great-Barrier-Reef.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Science has explored and documented just about every inch of planet Mars. Yet the deep sea remains largely unexplored while we are destroying it. Hopefully public awareness of deep sea creatures will make people more concerned about oil spills and pollution.

[Conservationist]

People love escapism. The seas also are terrifying like being buried alive in a way that dying of a spacecraft crash never will be.

[hoodwink]

People love escapism. The seas also are terrifying like being buried alive in a way that dying of a spacecraft crash never will be.

it comes back to the opposing metaphors of "going up" and "going down".  We bury the dead (and many secrets) beneath our feet, while moving up literally puts us in a position superior to our fellow man. Literally, if I climb a mountain, I'm hundreds of feet above everyone else.  Wealthy people and rulers have for years lived on hills.  It follows that our betters deserve an optimum vantage point where they can "oversee" our daily toiling.  We are told the air is more pure the higher you go, whereas at sea level one is exposed to the filth and fumes emitted by common people.  

drug metaphors have for years been awash in references to flight; enhanced or expanded consciousness has been equated with elevation.  conscious existence is defined by the drug culture as existing on the earth's surface, to escape it requires a trip "up".  if we recall the book of Jonah, the reluctant Jonah, at odds with God, encounters a great storm at sea, is tossed into the ocean, and is swallowed alive by a whale.  subsequently, he pledges his devotion to God and the whale spews him out of the depths of the ocean onto dry land.  there are painfully apparent psychological implications to the Jonah myth, but even more obvious is how the disobedient and angry man is thrown "down" into the black abyss where a giant monster swallows him.  when he agrees to become good, he is thrown "up" and his life begins anew in service to God.  the baptism ritual doesn't involve tossing a person into the air, does it?

 why is heaven up in the sky and hell under our feet?  why does just about everyone misinterpret the symbolism of the cross?  

Ronnie James Dio seemed to get it:

"We're all born upon the cross
The throw before the toss
You can release yourself
But the only way you go is down."

I'm really glad Conservationist chose to lead the topic in the direction he did; there are a great many reasons why mankind obsesses over space flight while largely ignoring "undersea" exploration, and many of them have nothing whatsoever to do with colonizing Mars.

[JSPAG]

A couple of weeks ago I was enjoying the sun and sand of Charelston SC's beaches.....Folley Beach to be precise. I've been to the ocean many of times and an odd fishy smell of death overpowered the salty spray of the ocean.

Millions of clams, or oysters had washed up dead on shore. When I say millions this is no stretch of the imagination. Here and there I overheard odd references from the local populas that they had never seen, nor smelled anything like this before....I came back to the beach a week later and noticed all of the dead shellfish had been covered up by metric tons of sand hauled in from elsewhere. It seemed surreal at the time but now it seems to make some sense.

I think this oil spill in many ways is out of the grasp of knowing the potential side effects now or 20 years for now for that matter......

[Veritas]

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

[scourge]

I'm really glad Conservationist chose to lead the topic in the direction he did; there are a great many reasons why mankind obsesses over space flight while largely ignoring "undersea" exploration, and many of them have nothing whatsoever to do with colonizing Mars.

Was consideration given to the fact that the West is fundamentally a Solarian rather than a Cthonic culture and this is the reason for our seeking the heavens rather than delving within?

[hoodwink]

I'm really glad Conservationist chose to lead the topic in the direction he did; there are a great many reasons why mankind obsesses over space flight while largely ignoring "undersea" exploration, and many of them have nothing whatsoever to do with colonizing Mars.

Was consideration given to the fact that the West is fundamentally a Solarian rather than a Cthonic culture and this is the reason for our seeking the heavens rather than delving within?

Oh, absolutely.  The majority of the pagan traditions that christianity borrowed from in shaping its philosophy were all sun worshippers - the Sol Invictus of Rome being one of the closest relatives - and that fostered the habit of looking skyward for assistance.  It's not surprising that christianity has also sought to "bury" evidence of the chthonic cultures, as those teachings were thought by the early church to encourage a worship of demons and netherworld figures.

[The internet shelters weaklings.]

CNN - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SaOccHXnLA
No respirators because it is bad for company image. Undisclosed chemical composition of dispersant.

[scourge]

]The majority of the pagan traditions that christianity borrowed from in shaping its philosophy were all sun worshippers - the Sol Invictus of Rome being one of the closest relatives - and that fostered the habit of looking skyward for assistance.

When the winters are cold and you have to be outside, it is so nice when the sun comes out bringing warmth to the body. This Solarian thing predates Sol Invictus by far. I'm thinking the ice ages. The sun means life for us and the cold and dark is our doom.

[hoodwink]

]The majority of the pagan traditions that christianity borrowed from in shaping its philosophy were all sun worshippers - the Sol Invictus of Rome being one of the closest relatives - and that fostered the habit of looking skyward for assistance.

This Solarian thing predates Sol Invictus by far. I'm thinking the ice ages.

Ostensibly, the Roman concept of Sol Invictus is a descendant from the sun-god archetype, but I was speaking specifically about the most immediate predecessor to the christian sun/son mythos.  Imo, the christian writers actually did a better job of articulating the deity than any of their predecessors or imitators.